Finally I loaded DD-wrt's dd-wrt.v24-18946_NEWD-2_K2.6_mega, configured and have run it for a full night with no hangups (all DCS920s still responding and sending video, all motion videos stored to the Samba shared USB 2 drive, all computers, NAS, and other elements still running on the network.) I admit that a configuration setting could have been off in Tomato firmware resulting in the failure; However, it was easier to load DD-wrt (configured the same as on Tomato) and it run stable. While I prefer Tomato's interface, I must run what is currently easiest to configure and deploy for my particular setup.

Thanks to the OP for a good deal...

BostonOne

Senior Member - 2K

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 11:14a

Finally got around to opening this up and installing DD-WRT mega on one of my two (I'll be putting DD-WRT on the other to use as a bridge). Install went smoothly.

Having a strange problem. I have been able to see and connect to the access point no problem from my iphone and Kindle. However, my MacBook Air laptops (running Lion) can't even see the SSID of the AP. Any ideas?

Running in mixed mode with WPA2 personal/AES.

presbuteros

Ancient Member

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 11:23a

BostonOne said: Having a strange problem. I have been able to see and connect to the access point no problem from my iphone and Kindle. However, my MacBook Air laptops (running Lion) can't even see the SSID of the AP. Any ideas?

presbuteros said: BostonOne said: Having a strange problem. I have been able to see and connect to the access point no problem from my iphone and Kindle. However, my MacBook Air laptops (running Lion) can't even see the SSID of the AP. Any ideas?

Hope it helps...Thanks for that. That's a fix for connection problems with a network the machine can see & connect to. My problem is that my 2 laptops don't even see the SSID for the access point. Even if I try to enter it manually, it says "No network found."

BostonOne

Senior Member - 2K

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 1:27p

BostonOne said: Finally got around to opening this up and installing DD-WRT mega on one of my two (I'll be putting DD-WRT on the other to use as a bridge). Install went smoothly.

Having a strange problem. I have been able to see and connect to the access point no problem from my iphone and Kindle. However, my MacBook Air laptops (running Lion) can't even see the SSID of the AP. Any ideas?

Running in mixed mode with WPA2 personal/AES.Problem solved. I had changed the channel to avoid interference with my neighbors - when I changed it back to Auto, the MacBook Airs could see the network.

Toddler

Senior Member - 3K

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 4:07p

BostonOne said: Problem solved. I had changed the channel to avoid interference with my neighbors - when I changed it back to Auto, the MacBook Airs could see the network.Did you set your channel above 11? If so, that would explain why it wasn't found. Even though the DD-WRT firmware will let you select channels 12, 13 and 14, those channels are not approved for usage in the US, and your wireless drivers probably won't bind to them.

Or it could have been something else.

BostonOne

Senior Member - 2K

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 5:54p

Toddler said: BostonOne said: Problem solved. I had changed the channel to avoid interference with my neighbors - when I changed it back to Auto, the MacBook Airs could see the network.Did you set your channel above 11? If so, that would explain why it wasn't found. Even though the DD-WRT firmware will let you select channels 12, 13 and 14, those channels are not approved for usage in the US, and your wireless drivers probably won't bind to them.

Or it could have been something else. Yes, that was it. Though, interestingly enough, my iPhone & Kindle were still able to see the network & connect successfully.

scholar10

Senior Member

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 6:52p

I received a F7D7301 v1 and followed steps in the first post. Initially things appeared to move smoothly-- default factory settings, 30/30/30, bringing up cfe mini browser with the upload field -- this is done.But upon trying to upload the mini_f7d3301.bin, I get a problem loading page/"connection was reset" (in firefox) or "cannot display webpage (in IE). Also (after the 30/30/30), no light on the router is lit (although the cfe page does come up at 192.168.2.1).

Any tips to move forward would be great. Thanks.

Edit: Saw another post with the solution -- I used the Belkin default firmware to upload ddwrt, and it worked fine.

g10ny

Serene Member

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 8:17p

Now I have an issue with the retail packaging. Call it OT if you want. See, on the back of the packaging there is a picture at the bottom. In that picture, a girl is printing photos wirelessly, and another girl and a boy are looking together at the photos already printed.Now zoom on the second girl. While her shape is worthy of a picture, the way she sits on the bed and at the same looks at photos and smiles with the boy strikes me as unnatural.

scholar10

Senior Member

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 9:18p

Got the basic functionality going with ddwrt. It's bit of a letdown though to find out (from some of the posts) that enabling usb printers is such a bear on ddwrt. I've enabled all the usb options but no dice yet. Guess I need to ssh into the router and configure a bunch more.

On my 6-year old usr with default fw, configuring printers is a 30-second process. Enable usb port (radio button), and then begin pointing computers to the router's http://lan-ip-address/printer. One of the reasons I've hung on to this ancient router this long

If you decide to install ddwrt, expect that the usb printer/drive isn't click-and-go.

wizardking

Thrifty Member

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 10:31p

Hypnosis4u2nv said: DD-WRT USB NAS INSTRUCTIONS

***WITHOUT THE OPTWARE PACKAGE INSTALLED WITH THE NTFS DRIVER, NTFS FORMATTED DRIVES WILL NOT WORK***

dd-wrt.v24-18946_NEWD-2_K2.6_big.bin supports NTFS automagically.

roseusa

Member

posted: May. 5, 2012 @ 10:55p

wizardking said: Hypnosis4u2nv said: DD-WRT USB NAS INSTRUCTIONS

***WITHOUT THE OPTWARE PACKAGE INSTALLED WITH THE NTFS DRIVER, NTFS FORMATTED DRIVES WILL NOT WORK***

scholar10 said: Got the basic functionality going with ddwrt. It's bit of a letdown though to find out (from some of the posts) that enabling usb printers is such a bear on ddwrt. I've enabled all the usb options but no dice yet. Guess I need to ssh into the router and configure a bunch more.

On my 6-year old usr with default fw, configuring printers is a 30-second process. Enable usb port (radio button), and then begin pointing computers to the router's http://lan-ip-address/printer. One of the reasons I've hung on to this ancient router this long

If you decide to install ddwrt, expect that the usb printer/drive isn't click-and-go.Getting the printing to work under DD-WRT is actually pretty simple. As posted back on page 16 of this thread here are the steps I used to get printing portion of my multi function USB printer to work.

Attach USB Printer to the router.Go to Services --> USB. Set USB Printer Support to Enable.Select the Save button, then select the Apply Settings button. (I rebooted the router just in case, don't know if needed).

USB printing works OK, as well. There were a few occasions when adding an external hard drive/flash drive where I had to power cycle the router to get the drives recognized and mounted, when using two or more drives connected to the router’s USB ports or via a powered USB hub connected to the router.

Only quirk so far (that I didn’t notice before) is a external Toshiba 1TB Canvio (HDTC610XK3B1) drive doesn’t power up when using USB Port 2 (left hand port) on the router. This drive works fine on USB Port 1 (right hand port). When I connect that drive to a powered USB hub and then connect the hub to USB Port 2, the drive is recognized and mounted. This quirk is probably due to the power draw on the Canvio drive being slightly out of USB 3.0/2.0 spec. This out of spec is the suspected cause of why this drive doesn’t work on some PC and MAC computers.

roseusa

Member

posted: May. 6, 2012 @ 12:16p

thats good Big accepting NTFS, i will install it tonight. is any body knows what is differnece between Big and Mega?

speedingtix

New Member

posted: May. 6, 2012 @ 12:41p

roseusa said: thats good Big accepting NTFS, i will install it tonight. is any body knows what is differnece between Big and Mega?

bennor said: scholar10 said: Got the basic functionality going with ddwrt. It's bit of a letdown though to find out (from some of the posts) that enabling usb printers is such a bear on ddwrt. I've enabled all the usb options but no dice yet. Guess I need to ssh into the router and configure a bunch more.

On my 6-year old usr with default fw, configuring printers is a 30-second process. Enable usb port (radio button), and then begin pointing computers to the router's http://lan-ip-address/printer. One of the reasons I've hung on to this ancient router this long

If you decide to install ddwrt, expect that the usb printer/drive isn't click-and-go.Getting the printing to work under DD-WRT is actually pretty simple. As posted back on page 16 of this thread here are the steps I used to get printing portion of my multi function USB printer to work.

Attach USB Printer to the router.Go to Services --> USB. Set USB Printer Support to Enable.Select the Save button, then select the Apply Settings button. (I rebooted the router just in case, don't know if needed).

Copy and paste the link.Let me rephrase that. I can't see why NTFS didn't make it into the mega build, since mega is supposed to be all-inclusive. Guess that's good news for you guys who need that feature.

bawaji said: Looks like the only difference between the mega and giga builds is lack of NTFS support in the former. Mega supports VPN Concentrate and SSH FTP.. Not a real deal breaker possibly for most..

Can the giga build be installed on this router or is there not enough memory?

I don't even see a Giga version of this DD-WRT build.. The routers built in memory is 8MB and the Mega build is already at 7.57MB..

Hypnosis4u2nv

Greedy Member

posted: May. 6, 2012 @ 8:47p

I have went ahead and updated the Member Summary to reflect most of the contributions Fatwallet members have given this thread with direct links to the most common questions and solutions..

If you feel I left out something, please let me know and I will add it in..

Thank you to everyone who helped make this thread the most informative and supportive on Fatwallet!

lisong

Happy Member

posted: May. 6, 2012 @ 9:05p

Man, you did a great job. I replaced both my routers at home with this one. Unlike my previous netgear 2000 router, this one was so stable I didn't reboot it since flashed with dd-wrt a month ago. Also put my printer on it using optware. Put an external usb hard drive on second router which is my client bridge upstairs. It solved my hackintosh lacking wifi support problem. All the computers upstairs now got ethernet connections.

BongWater

Addicted Member

posted: May. 6, 2012 @ 10:27p

bennor said: scholar10 said: Got the basic functionality going with ddwrt. It's bit of a letdown though to find out (from some of the posts) that enabling usb printers is such a bear on ddwrt. I've enabled all the usb options but no dice yet. Guess I need to ssh into the router and configure a bunch more.

On my 6-year old usr with default fw, configuring printers is a 30-second process. Enable usb port (radio button), and then begin pointing computers to the router's http://lan-ip-address/printer. One of the reasons I've hung on to this ancient router this long

If you decide to install ddwrt, expect that the usb printer/drive isn't click-and-go.Getting the printing to work under DD-WRT is actually pretty simple. As posted back on page 16 of this thread here are the steps I used to get printing portion of my multi function USB printer to work.

Attach USB Printer to the router.Go to Services --> USB. Set USB Printer Support to Enable.Select the Save button, then select the Apply Settings button. (I rebooted the router just in case, don't know if needed).

That looks pretty simple. I wish I would have tried that method. I ended up following the instructions here Link. The instructions are for an ASUS router but a previous link said that it would work with the Belkin. I can't believe I was able to follow it but I got mine working perfectly now.

I tried a couple of times to install Tomato instead but I was never able to get it installed. I tried multiple times with the same result: I updated the dd-wrt mini but on first login it would ask for a user and password (which I created) but when I tried to then log in to update to Tomato it would not accept the user or password that I created. I tried about 6 times before I decided to just use dd-wrt.

For $21 I've gotten an education into routers and dd-wrt.

Toddler

Senior Member - 3K

posted: May. 6, 2012 @ 11:42p

BongWater said: bennor said: scholar10 said: Got the basic functionality going with ddwrt. It's bit of a letdown though to find out (from some of the posts) that enabling usb printers is such a bear on ddwrt. I've enabled all the usb options but no dice yet. Guess I need to ssh into the router and configure a bunch more.

On my 6-year old usr with default fw, configuring printers is a 30-second process. Enable usb port (radio button), and then begin pointing computers to the router's http://lan-ip-address/printer. One of the reasons I've hung on to this ancient router this long

If you decide to install ddwrt, expect that the usb printer/drive isn't click-and-go.Getting the printing to work under DD-WRT is actually pretty simple. As posted back on page 16 of this thread here are the steps I used to get printing portion of my multi function USB printer to work.

Attach USB Printer to the router.Go to Services --> USB. Set USB Printer Support to Enable.Select the Save button, then select the Apply Settings button. (I rebooted the router just in case, don't know if needed).

That looks pretty simple. I wish I would have tried that method. I ended up following the instructions here Link. The instructions are for an ASUS router but a previous link said that it would work with the Belkin. I can't believe I was able to follow it but I got mine working perfectly now.

I tried a couple of times to install Tomato instead but I was never able to get it installed. I tried multiple times with the same result: I updated the dd-wrt mini but on first login it would ask for a user and password (which I created) but when I tried to then log in to update to Tomato it would not accept the user or password that I created. I tried about 6 times before I decided to just use dd-wrt.

For $21 I've gotten an education into routers and dd-wrt.Sounds like you did pretty well, especially for an old stoner.

bennor

Senior Member

posted: May. 7, 2012 @ 7:14a

BongWater said: I tried a couple of times to install Tomato instead but I was never able to get it installed. I tried multiple times with the same result: I updated the dd-wrt mini but on first login it would ask for a user and password (which I created) but when I tried to then log in to update to Tomato it would not accept the user or password that I created. I tried about 6 times before I decided to just use dd-wrt.When the Tomato firmware is flashed via the DD-WRT mini, Tomato does not use the DD-WRT username and password login information. The reason for this is the way DD-WRT stores the http_passwd variable. Tomato should default (as far as I've seen when flashing to TomatoUSB on the F7D7301) to the following login...Username: rootPassword: admin

Hello, any help would be much appreciated.I am unable to load mini build via CFE menu. Using Chrome. It shows "uploading 17%" or so, then after ~20 sec web page goes down showing HTTP status 503. After that dd-wrt does not come up (waited 10, 20 min.). I am able to re-boot router and do 30/30/30, and get back to CFE menu. Apparently dd-wrt did not load. Tried both 15396 and 18946 builds. Any suggestions?

Hypnosis4u2nv

Greedy Member

posted: May. 7, 2012 @ 11:47a

If you can't get into the firmware page, get it into CFE and try TFTP to flash the Mini build..

bennor

Senior Member

posted: May. 7, 2012 @ 1:29p

andyh80 said: Hello, any help would be much appreciated.I am unable to load mini build via CFE menu. Using Chrome. It shows "uploading 17%" or so, then after ~20 sec web page goes down showing HTTP status 503. After that dd-wrt does not come up (waited 10, 20 min.). I am able to re-boot router and do 30/30/30, and get back to CFE menu. Apparently dd-wrt did not load. Tried both 15396 and 18946 builds. Any suggestions?Keep in mind that when you go to flash from the Belkin stock firmware right out of the box the router defaults to ip address 192.168.2.1. Once you flash the router with the DD-WRT Mini, the router should default to the IP Address 192.168.1.1. If your computer is configured for a static IP of 192.168.2.8 (per this thread's flashing directions) you will be unable to access the router when it has been flashed with DD-WRT mini. Change your computer's static IP address to 192.168.1.8, power cycle the router, wait at least a minute (the green light on the router should be on) then try to access the router again via 192.168.1.1 with your web browser.

Couple of comments/suggestions on flashing this router....

Never, EVER, flash this or any router over a wireless connection, always use a wired connection.

Clear your browser's Cache before flashing. Its important to delete the "temporary internet files" when deleting the browser's Cache.

If your computer has multiple network adapters, disable all but the one that is wired to the router.

Disconnect all other connected devices to the router including the broadband modem. This includes any connected USB devices.

Always configure your computer with a Static IP Address when flashing. Be sure to put the router's IP address in the Gateway field for the static IP address. The router should be reached at either 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1 after being flashed.

Try an alternate browser if your current one cannot upload the firmware file from the CFE web page.

Always do a hard 30-30-30 reset BEFORE flashing the router. Press and hold the reset button for 30 seconds, while still holding in the reset button remove power to the router for 30 seconds, while still holding in the reset button, reapply the power to the router and wait 30 more seconds.

On the CFE page, select the option to reset or clear the NVRAM before flashing the router.

After the router firmware has been updated, power cycle the router.

Make sure your using the correct, recommened, firmware mention in this thread for this router, using incorrect firmware will brick this router.

Another way to reach the CFE page is to remove power from the router and press and hold the reset button, then reapply power and wait 30 seconds while continuing to hold in the reset button.

Don't be surprised if the router's indicator light is not lit when on the CFE page or when flashing from the CFE page to DD-WRT Mini.

If the router indicator light is orange (or any color other than green) after flashing, power cycle the router, and the router indicator light should return to green after a minute or two.

BostonOne

Senior Member - 2K

posted: May. 7, 2012 @ 2:08p

bennor said: andyh80 said: Hello, any help would be much appreciated.I am unable to load mini build via CFE menu. Using Chrome. It shows "uploading 17%" or so, then after ~20 sec web page goes down showing HTTP status 503. After that dd-wrt does not come up (waited 10, 20 min.). I am able to re-boot router and do 30/30/30, and get back to CFE menu. Apparently dd-wrt did not load. Tried both 15396 and 18946 builds. Any suggestions?Keep in mind that when you go to flash from the Belkin stock firmware right out of the box the router defaults to ip address 192.168.2.1. Once you flash the router with the DD-WRT Mini, the router should default to the IP Address 192.168.1.1. If your computer is configured for a static IP of 192.168.2.8 (per this thread's flashing directions) you will be unable to access the router when it has been flashed with DD-WRT mini. Change your computer's static IP address to 192.168.1.8, power cycle the router, wait at least a minute (the green light on the router should be on) then try to access the router again via 192.168.1.1 with your web browser.

Couple of comments/suggestions on flashing this router.......deleted list...I had to try multiple times with different browsers (with Cache clearing in between) to get the mini loaded. Initially, it looked like it wasn't doing anything after I chose to upload the image. This only happened with my 2nd router - I didn't have this issue with the first one.

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